Riley Gaines addresses Tennessee’s ‘Save Women’s Sports’ gathering.

Former professional swimmer Riley Gaines spoke to a captivated audience of over 100 at the “Our Spaces/Our Sports: Women Hold the Line” event in Nashville, Tennessee. Gaines shared her experience of being forced to compete against a transgender swimmer, Lia Thomas, and how female athletes can fight back against institutions that attempt to make them compete against men. Gaines suggested that boycotting is an effective way to make change, and if female swimmers had all boycotted, Thomas would never have entered the pool.

Gaines shared how she planned to protest against the NCAA’s decision to make her swim against a man. She decided to swim but not step up to the podium, leaving an empty place to show Thomas’s massive physical advantage in height and strength. Gaines tied with Thomas, which meant there wouldn’t be an empty place on the podium, but at least she could stand next to Thomas and show the world the unfairness of the situation.

Gaines dedicated 17 years of her life to swimming, and her life revolved around the sport. She spent about six hours swimming every day in college and didn’t get to go on vacations or have sleepovers with friends. Gaines said that the pool of women living this lifestyle is so small that top professional swimmers know each other by name.

Gaines was shocked when Thomas started breaking records with all the advantages of male puberty. Thomas was a mediocre athlete in men’s sports, but in women’s sports, he was a prodigy, dominating every event from the 100-meter to the mile. Gaines tied with Thomas in the 200-yard freestyle, and this meant that every woman who placed below Thomas was unjustly placed one rank lower.

Gaines and other female swimmers had to share a locker room with Thomas, and Gaines shared how uncomfortable it was to see a 6-foot-4, 22-year-old male dropping his clothes, fully intact with him exposing male genitalia, watching others undress. The NCAA had changed its guidelines to make the locker room unisex, and any man could have walked into that locker room.

Event speaker Amy Sousa, a psychologist, spoke about the word “grooming” and how the transgender ideology’s continued insistence that men who say they are women can enter women’s spaces is dangerous. By teaching women that the words of transgender men overrule observed reality, the transgender ideology encourages women to ignore real dangers.

In conclusion, Gaines’s experience highlights the unfairness of forcing female athletes to compete against men and the need for female athletes to fight back against institutions that attempt to make them compete against men. Female athletes can make a change by boycotting, and it’s time to stand up for women’s rights and spaces.

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